Serious as a Heart Attack... [more on video resumes]

And I am completely serious when I wonder how a brilliant guy like Stephen Dubner wonders why more people aren't using video resumes. Seriously?

Good thing those smarty-pants commentors left him 27 comments (at last count) setting him straight. Or, at least, trying to. For the record--let me make this as simple as I can:

Video resumes are cool. They are fun Youtube-WebCam-send-the-link-to-your-friends kind of things. But Mr. Corporate Legal pants doesn't like them and neither do I.

1) They are, for the most part, too creative right now. They make great audition tapes for The Apprentice but not for my company.

2) They are too long. I don't have time to watch them and I don't want to have to turn my volume up when I am in my office (door open) or traveling and have people wonder what the hell I am listening to.

3) I have no way to manage them. Most companies have fancy tracing systems to legally track applicants and avoid troublesome DOL audits. If a resume can't be scanned into my system and turned into RTF I probably won't read or see it.

4) It's too hard to compare. I can't put two videos side by side the way I can veiw two resumes.

5) People are scared of photos and videos. Europeans have been putting photos on CVs for years. We're too litigious in the US to do it (not that you absolutely can't, but it's deemed risky by almost anyone with a capital VP in their title.

6) I can't watch watch your video and interview you at the same time. But I can scan your resume or refer to it while you're sitting in front of me.

Are resumes in their traditional form outdated. Yep. But do we know what comes next? Not a chance. And that's seriously...a problem.

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